On Tuesday Microsoft released a patch for the Windows Animated Cursor Flaw that had become a serious issue for Windows users in the past few weeks. The patch covers all computers running Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista…and without it your system is vulnerable to being taken over by the hacker overlords.

It was originally believed that Firefox wasn’t susceptible to this flaw, but Mike Schroepfer (vice president of engineering at Mozilla) points out:

The vulnerability is caused by a Windows error…it can be exploited through both Firefox and Internet Explorer. We are investigating issuing a workaround within Firefox in an upcoming security release.…Microsoft has issued a patch to fix Windows and we encourage all Windows users to apply this update immediately.

To make it easier for you to update your Windows machine I have gathered all of the direct links to the update files:

Of course, if you perform a Windows Update on your PC this patch will automatically be downloaded and installed on your computer. Just make sure you get the update installed one way or another because even Firefox is vulnerable!